


West of Death

by Control_Room



Category: Bendy and the Ink Machine
Genre: Ableism, Accidental Cuddling, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Arguing, Bad Jokes, Bad Puns, Blood, Cuties, Disappointment, Drinking, Drunkenness, Embarrassment, Enemies to Friends, Estrangement, Euphemisms, Flashback Chapters, Flashbacks, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Enemies, Gen, Guns, Heavy Angst, Help, Hurt, Hurt/Comfort, Memories, Multi, Near Death, Physical Abuse, Physical Disability, Protectiveness, Self depreciation, Sibling Rivalry, Siblings, Slang, Starvation, TW:, Tags May Change, Teasing, Torture, Verbal Abuse, Violence, Western AU, Whipping, because i am weak, because my boys got smashed, hangovers, in bed jokes, protective older sister, puns, tags will spoil too much, terrible puns, to confusion, very... very... bad jokes, vida la vida
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-06
Updated: 2018-11-14
Packaged: 2019-08-19 21:48:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 15,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16542899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Control_Room/pseuds/Control_Room
Summary: Johan screwed up this time. A lot.Set in the Western AU





	1. Sand

**Author's Note:**

  * For [phantomthief_fee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/phantomthief_fee/gifts).



> Esther belongs to phantomthief_fee  
> thanks for putting up with all my questions, there will be more to follow (until this is 100% done at least)

Johan never would have expected it to come to this. Ha. He really should have. No one, not even if they have the same name as him, would ever have acted so stupidly to Joey Drew.

 

The gang boss showed him that, and more.

 

He said he’d make Johan wish he was never born, and _congradu-fuckin’-lation_ , he managed to do that extremely well.

 

He and the Butcher Gang left him, laying and bleeding out in the sand, alone and in pain, with not one soul around to help him.

 

Maybe it would have been better if he begged for the bullet.

 

No, no, he had to warn him, he had to tell Ray, he was in danger, additionally, Ray was the only doctor in the town. If he died ~~or was killed by Johan’s own damned mistake~~ , that would lead to so much more destruction and catastrophe for the little ‘city.’ He had to warn him, he had to get back to him, he had to beg and plead for forgiveness from…

Ray.

 

Shit. Maybe he should just tell Harrison.

 

Harrison didn’t trust him either, though.

 

To make matters even worse, the sheriff hated him.

 

And both were dead (in Harrison’s case dead to the world), just like he would be.

 

He hissed and swore as he attempted to sit up, pain shooting up his spine and focusing on points of his back, and for once in his life, he was grateful for the fact he was paralyzed below his hips. Otherwise, this would have been a much worse hell, his body battered and bruised. Despite small miracles disguised as curses, he shivered in the immense heat of the sun, teeth clattering as goosebumps broke out on his skin. His hands were shaking and his glasses were cracked, and he was certain at least three of his ribs were broken.

 

With a great effort (and a lot of pain), he looked to his right, where his wheelchair was destroyed, its pieces scattered in the sand. Damn it. They really wanted to make sure he’d die there, didn’t they? No one would even bother looking for him, the useless and spineless creature he was. Ray’s careful hands would never pull him back together. Johan felt like crying just thinking of the doctor.

 

His vision blurred, be it with tears or pain or a cacophony of both, and that pulled him out of sadness and yanked him terrifyingly into fear. Oh, _god,_ he really was going to die out here, was he? His breathing sped up, and he forced himself onto his forearms, to give him **some** distance to the hot ground. He made himself take breaths from his nose, trying desperately to for _once_ listen to the damn advice the Doctor gave him.

 

Breathe, damn you! Why is it so hard for you to do normal things!?

 

Think of a way out.

 

Crawling? Like hell. He wouldn’t even make it if he tried, and the town’s people would just jeer at him if he somehow defied all odds and did, literally crawling back to Ray, time and time again. But usually he had his wheelchair.

 

His wheelchair which was completely demolished.

 

That was not entirely true, he found as he pulled himself to it. All four wheels were intact, but it was the metals and the seat that were destroyed. What did that lunatic police chief Franks say? His brother had shoes with wheels on the bottom? That sounded about right. How did he do it? Johan had no idea, but he had to come up with one. Okay, he could do this.

 

All he needed was a little belief and a metric _fuck_ ton of ingenuity.

 

Use the fabric from the ripped seat to tie the bottom of his feet to the foot rests, the two small wheels thankfully still attached. Come **on** , _think_! What next, you still can’t stand! Fix that! How?

 

Pull up the handlebars of the bigger wheels. Simple, now he could use those to support himself. But what if his hands cramp or if he trips and drops one, which would make him fall and injure himself more?

 

Luckily, there was still some cloth left, and he tore off his already unbuttoned jacket (god, what did Joey _do_ to him?!) and ripped it into ropes to make sure his legs were tied tight enough to the metal, then wrapped the remainder of the material around his hands and the handlebars. Afterwards, he pushed himself up, wobbling forwards and back as he tried to find a balance on his useless legs, his arms straining. When what felt like hours passed, he finally seemed to ascertain a semblance of control, and took an experimental roll forward.

 

It worked like a charm.

 

A little shaky, but he could blame his nerves and broken bones.

 

He glided on the sand little by little, slowly at first, then more and more rapidly as he picked up momentum, trailing puffs of sand behind him as he sped through the desert, ignoring the agony tormenting all his limbs, especially his tortured _arms_ , god they were burning from the exertion.

 

He had to get there. He had to. He had to at least prove he never meant to hurt anyone.

 

He never meant to hurt anyone.

 

That was why he was in this mess in the first place.

 

He didn’t mean to hurt Ray’s little girl (she wasn’t so little anymore, but she was still his daughter), and now he could never forgive himself.

 

Lindsey was fine now, but he had hurt her.

 

Not that he touched a hair on her head, heavens no.

 

He hadn’t hurt her at all, in truth, but he threatened Ray he would.

 

Ray looked like he wanted to hit him then, as he swore up and down that he’d sell her over to that blasted gang, and as he averred that Ray would pay for what he did. Ray’s large and steady hands moved slightly then, as though they were preparing to smack him across the face.

 

Johan wished he did.

 

He wished that Ray had been the one who left him for dead in the desert.

 

He would have at least gotten some semblance of closure.

 

Maybe it was his brain’s twisted way of getting relief from being forced to do the same terrible things over and over, him forced to do awful things by Joey and his gang. At first it was little coercions: make sure this person gets convicted, obtain the documents of such and such safe; and then it shifted to larger things: have this person executed, or steal something important from a bank, like that historic shotgun. Joey had Johan squashed tight under his thumb and he knew it. Johan thought that maybe, just maybe, his mind changed his perception and then made him dominate others’ lives. But he knew within himself that he really was just a very shitty person.

 

A very shitty person who was not paying attention to his footing and was about to eat sand from slipping over a boulder. He felt himself skid forward as sand stung his eyes and throat. But he had to get up, he had to keep moving. He tried getting up, his arms collapsing under his weight, sending him back to Earth. Once again, he hauled his body up, slamming back down a third time. Tears were tracked by the lines of sand on his face. He wasn’t going to make it.

 

He had to try.

 

For Ray.


	2. stitch stitch swear

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please check out these wonderful people on tumblr: Inkspottie, Trashboatprince, Gruvu, Hntrgurl13, and of course, Doberart!

Johan could never have held back the scream torn from his lips as he fell again, landing precisely on the broken patches of his chest. There was only pain and more agony. The edges of his vision pulsed wickedly as he regained a form of composure, blood pounding in his ears.

 

He curled up, the metal of his makeshift crutches screeching in protest, but he was so tired. So very tired, and the cold was so… inviting. His eyes fluttered shut, his lips parting, sweat slowly drying in the sun’s heat. He didn’t feel the sun at all, it was as though it were replaced by an empty and icy void. He could hear angels singing, and he decided he was having a mirage or was dying. Then he recalled that mirages are not auditory and accepted the fact he was dying.

 

The sudden remembrance that he would never go to heaven for all his misdeeds smacked him in the face, jolting him awake.

 

He recognized that earthly angelic singing.

 

It was Susie and Allison.

 

He looked up to the heavens and praised whatever could have listened to his hushed gratitude, be it a bird or power beyond his knowledge.

 

Johan arose carefully, making his way to the town he was a minute away from at a snail’s pace, but what more could be expected of him? He passed the two star crossed lovers’ ranch, goaded to put on a burst of speed by the earthly angel’s song. He made it into the town, and now all he need to do was to get to the Doctor, for Ray’s sake, he had to warn him. He stumbled onto hard pavement, his wheels no longer made for easy gliding in sand, and he trudged along, slowly closing the gap between himself and Ray’s practitioner's office. Darkness skimmed his sight, and there was a ringing in his ears, and he could feel every ragged breath as he entered the main area of Angel Town, the streets fully empty as always, everyone prefering to hang out and to eat and drink their hearts out at Shawn’s pub (Shamrock and Roll), often with Johnny or Sammy playing music, sometimes them together, Jack’s funny little lyrics to go with everything….

 

Johan felt another pang of searing pain skewer him, raking through each of his raw nerves, and never before did he so _crave_ Ray and his presence. His eyes rolled back as he failed to stifle a groan, everything bright red and so viscerally vibrant. He froze to gasp in air, waiting a moment before continuing onwards. That action may have been too hasty, for tripped, his arms braced to catch him against the wall.

 

His brain did not properly process what he had presumed to be a wall, it was in fact, a door.

 

This specific door was the door to Ray’s medical office, and just as he fell in, Ray was about to go out after hearing a subdued noise of pain (Johan’s), his compassionate reflex and empathy kicking him hard. Even though he was in the middle of a meeting with Harrison and the Sheriff, he excused himself to see who he could assist, only to find Johan buckling onto him and latching on with the desperation of a man who needed air, and Ray was the only speck of O2 left. Johan’s hold on him was weak and tight, his face bright red and his breathing rough, irregular, and going a hundred miles an hour.

 

“Whoozit?” Harrison called from the backroom. Some called him the deputy, as he always was with the sheriff of Inkwell, but in reality he was just Inkwell's bar tender, much like Shawn was Angel Town's. Ray couldn’t find his voice, but he pulled the semiconscious Johan into the cool confines of his office-home. “Hey, Ray, who’s there?”

 

“Doctor?” Henry followed up after a moment of silence. Ray hauled Johan into the care room, setting him on the soft, padded table and quickly unstrapping the makeshift bindings and tossing the metal to the side, the loud clanging sound produced making the sheriff and Harrison flinch. “Do you need any help?”

 

“Yes, please, come quick,” Ray managed to reply. God, there was blood _everywhere_. Harrison was the first to enter, and he looked like he might vomit as he beheld the damage.  “I…” Ray never felt so lost, there were so many injuries, he couldn’t tell where to start. “I… I can’t.”

 

“Do you really even want to?” Harrison asked, looking over at Johan distastefully. Everyone knew that he had sold out Linda, tricked her into getting caught. No one knew his neck was on the line. Ray hesitated. Johan, before he stormed off ten days ago, threatened that he’d give Lindsey away next. No one knew the thought of what he said haunted him like a curse. No one knew how he begged to protect her and Ray. Johan stirred, his face screaming pain and discomfort. Harrison looked away, suddenly sullen. “Why did he even come back here?!”

 

“I don’t know, ask Grant,” Ray bit back, raking a hand through wavy red hair. He paced, worrying at his lower lip. “What the hell happened to him is a better question. I thought Joey was his boss, wouldn’t he have, I dunno, like gang protection or something?”

 

“ **Doctor** , I think you are forgetting your position,” Henry cooly cut in, reminding him of his duties. “You have a patient, not someone who needs his actions analyzed and his past looked into.”

 

“Yes, you’re right,” Ray admitted, then quickly took to removing Johan’s already partially unbuttoned shirt. “Harrison, would you kindly get me a lotta gauze and rubbing alcohol?”

 

“Sure,” he grumbled, reluctant but retrieving the items anyways. Johan’s chest was covered in scratches, cuts, and bruises, and there was a startling protrusion where one of his ribs stuck out, obviously broken. “Th-that looks bad….”

 

“It is,” Ray confirmed, doing a quick sweep of his temperature and blood rate. Damn it, way too hot, way too fast. Heatstroke, maybe. Ray gently probed the rest of his chest, and two other ribs were broken. He cursed under his breath, soaking a gauze pad in the alcohol, the fumes causing the passed out man to moan as it stung his raw lungs. Ray paused, then sighed and wiped down the blood, Johan leaning into the cool touch. The vast majority of the blood cleaned right off, the remainder from small cuts but nothing serious, as most of the damage stayed under the skin in bruises, and Ray suddenly worried for the other’s back. “Can I get a pillow over here? I need to flip him over.”

 

“Here’s one,” the sheriff gruffly replied, passing him the one he was leaning on in an armchair. Ray carefully turned the lanky man onto his stomach, making sure to keep as much pressure _off_ his ribcage as he could, gently prying off his shirt from his hot and dry back. His breath hitched, and Harrison swore. Henry jumped up and stared, his usual apathetic and stoic mask removed for disgust and shock. “What the Hell? ‘ _Who’s laughing now?_ ’ What kind of sick freak….”

 

“E-est? Hn, na… Ray…?” Johan groaned, hands clenching and unclenching in his agony, eyes opening and glazed over. “Hn, please… I… he… my chest… I’m sorry… ha… ha….”

 

“Relax,” Ray murmured, Johan managing to close his eyes and sink back into unconsciousness with another pained noise. Ray looked up at Harrison with despair in his eyes. “Can you… hold his wrists? He… he might get violent.”

 

“Yeah, no problem,” Harrison smiled shakily at the slightly older man, pinning Johan’s wrists down. “This good?”

 

“That’s fine,” Ray nodded, soaking a new gauze. He grit his teeth, his eyes hidden by his flashing glasses as he looked over the attacked areas. “He won’t be in a moment, so hold tight.”

 

“I’ll try,” Harrison grumbled, but he did not anticipate how much force Johan contained even in his unconcious, pained, and torn apart state, straining against the deputy with a strangled cry of torment as Ray scrubbed the blood off of him as tenderly as possible. Tears dripped from the man’s closed eyes, struggling and pleading to be let go. “Shit, he’s strong!”

 

“Please, Joey I swear I’ll never do it again, I’m sorry!” Johan blubbered, writhing in agony. “Don’t hurt _them_ , do what you want to me! Please d-don’t hurt them-AH! Hnng, please… Joey….”

 

“Calm down!” the sheriff barked, Johan quiver and moaning apologies, shaking under Ray’s painful touch. Henry smiled grimly. “Well, at least we know who was the sicko that did this. Good ol’ Mr. Joey Drew.”

 

Johan flinched at the name, but fell silent, whimpering through his wakeless tears. Silence filled the room as Ray worked on the horribly mutilated skin, trying to ignore the sneering damage.

 

 _Who’s laughing now?_ was carved deeply into his back amid all the other bruises and angry red blotches and scratches and stabs and one bullet hole as the dot of the question mark.

 

No one was laughing, except Drew and his cronies. Maybe he had some sadistic pleasure from torturing the paralyzed man to the brink of death. Ray’s stomach turned as he cleaned as much grime as he could, gauze after gauze soaked thoroughly in blood. The sheriff looked on without any sign of emotion, his mask returned, Harrison’s face blank in a replication of his “brother’s”, and his hands shaking as he restrained Johan. He didn’t dare remove the bullet, as that may have caused more problems than it was worth, ripping muscle and puncturing the lung or heart for instance. Eventually, Ray leaned back away from Johan, stitches sewn into delicate and dry skin. The words seemed to mock him still, he grabbed the gauze and bandages, covering the fixed wounds (and words) to prevent the damage from getting even worse. He turned him back onto his back, carefully pushing the rib back where it belonged. He swathed the raw skin on his ankles and arms, lifting him off the table and carrying him to the rest ward in his home (essentially a guest suite), setting him down gently.

 

He returned to Harrison and Henry, wiped the sweat from his forehead, and sat down to finish the meeting on what to do with the Drew conundrum, Henry deciding to go head on and it was agreed upon, since most believed him to be dead and Harrison in a guilt tripped penance in the desert, Shawn being completely silenced on the matter with his blood at stake if he spoke. Shawn managed to deflect most of the rumors, due to his power as the only pub owner of Angel Town, and spread his own on the Sheriff’s various modes of death, and the stories of the deputy’s self inflicted exile. Everyone believed doom was at hand, though it was soon to be a turning point for the good.

 

Not so much for Johan.

 

Johan had no family in Angel Town nor anyone that could be considered particularly close. He generally was very quiet about whether or not he even had a family, but there was a rumor floating around he had a sister called Esther or Jamie, pr possibly neither of those names. Just no one had ever heard him mention any family or friends. He was just a businessman, an attorney, a medical defense, an artist, no one to see. Most people had claimed he had an obsession or an infatuation with Ray, but in reality just was genuinely interested in being Ray’s friend if Ray didn’t want anything else. He’d be happy with any case, so when Ray laughed at him and muttered under his breath that he was a parasitic nuisance, it hurt. When Ray blew up at him ten days ago, yelling so loud Benjamin and his wolf Boris heard him from the outskirts of the town, it ripped something out of him, implanting Ray’s words in his mind instead of hope.

 

Those words swirled in his cloudy mind.

 

**_Useless. Disgusting. Deviant. Freak. Worthless._ **

 

That was all he’d ever be.


	3. Get. Out!

_ten days prior...._

 

“Are you even listening to me?” Ray demanded, grabbing his wrist. Johan looked up from the table with tearful eyes. “You did _what_ ? You sold Linda out to _Joey_? What the hell is wrong with you!?”

 

“I… I didn’t want to,” he whimpered, but Ray wouldn’t hear of it. “I c-can tell the sheriff, he can do justice on me….”

 

“I asked, what the hell is wrong with you, you psycho? You can’t even do anything for this community, and Linda is Henry’s _wife_! She’s far more important and valuable than you’d ever be, you disgusting snake! What the **hell** is wrong with you!?”

 

“Everything!” Johan snapped back, then clamped his mouth shut. “I’m sorry that I… I’m just really sorry, okay!?”

 

“If you’re really sorry you’d get her back for Henry!”

 

“Henry is **dead** , Ray.” he found himself saying. Shit, no one knew that! No one knew the Butcher Gang murdered him yet, in front of Harrison. Linda had been the bait. Ray looked shocked, his soft hazel brown eyes widening behind his oval glasses. “Harrison is gone, he left after he saw him die. H-he was pushed… into the canyon… Harrison couldn’t find his body… he thinks it’s his fault, and he ran away.”

 

“What? Dead? How do you know this?!” Henry thundered, gaining composure. “Is that where he’s been for the past two weeks, carrion feed at the bottom of a valley!?”

 

“I’m sorry!” Johan shouted, tears blazing in his eyes and refusing to fall. “He forced me to keep quiet about it! He’ll kill me!”

 

“Why the fuck do you think anyone would care? You’re useless. You can’t do anything, you’re a burden on this society. Why would anyone care if you died? Maybe they would have been glad such a blister and splinter was removed, did you think of that?” Ray asked him coldly, glaring venomously as he watched any sign of past joy vanish from Johan’s eyes. Johan swallowed roughly, lowering his head to look at his hands in his lap, his lap that had legs that didn’t work. **He** didn’t work. He felt himself stop breathing, but he didn’t care, not in the slightest. Everything Ray was saying was right. A smack to the senses. Wake up, Johan, you’re nothing. “Well? Have you? Did you ever think of how much better off everyone would be with your dead weight removed?”

 

“Yeah,” he replied, looking up with an anger and passion he didn’t know he had. “I have. Maybe you should open your eyes, Ray. Maybe then you would have seen how much of an unforgivable bootlicker I’ve been. How often I’d pray you’d realize who I really am! Nothing of worth, a leech with no purpose but to give others problems and headaches. Ray, just… I’m sorry. I’m a screw up whose parents didn’t want to deal with, and whose mother disowned, whose own sister left because she got her own family to take care of! Hey, Ray, I just keep messing things up, don’t I? Wanna know what people say about me? I know them all pretty well! Let’s see, there’s, hmm, Johan the parasite, Johan the worthless, Johan the deviant, so many _great_ **fucking** things!”

 

Johan knew his teeth were gritting in a horrid and unnatural smile, his lips stretched, and the lower one may have been bleeding.

 

“Johan…”

 

Johan knew that tone. The ‘Johan, stop being so selfish’ tone. He wanted to scream.

 

“Oh, for heaven’s sake! Just shove it where you know the sun doesn’t shine in this desert,” he hissed, and he was hardly aware the grin was still stuck on his face, lip definitely bleeding, he could taste the copper. “Maybe I should’ve picked Lindsey, and not Linda. On second thought, I’ll do just that, I’ll hand her into the Butcher Gang’s hands now. That way you could kill me without any second thoughts, huh Ray? Wrap your hands around my throat until I turn purple? You always did say you hated lilac, maybe you'd use that hatred and take it out on this pathetic person! I'm _weak_ , Ray. Kill me or not, I don't give a fucking damn. Maybe I should've gotten you to the cliff, then suicide would be much easier for me. Or maybe you'd catch onto the rouse and throw me into the canyon before they'd've got you. I don't know, but maybe you don't deserve the title of doctor if all you do is hurt people.”

 

Ray’s hands moved, one arm raising as though to hit him, the other a clenched fist. Johan shut his eyes with bated breath for the strike that never came. Instead, the hand slammed to the table. Ray leaned over it, breathing roughly and full of contained rage, the angle obscuring his body and face. He sharply pointed to the door.

 

“Get out,” he ordered. Johan looked offended if anything, sitting straighter in his wheelchair. “I said, _get_ **. _Out_**!”

 

“Well, fuck you too, Ray,” Johan bit back, leaving anyways with hot angry tears simmering in his eyes. “You’ll pay dearly for your words, Ray, just mark mine.”


	4. forgive me, please

_Back to the present._

 

Ray stared at the letter before him, a letter he was writing to a woman named Esther whom he never met, but who really was Johan’s sister. He confided her information with Ray in case of his death and no other circumstance. Well, they apparently had too big a communication gap to agree with that sentiment. He smiled wryly as he sealed off the envelope, stepping out and sending it with godspeed by the means of Thomas and his confounded machinery. He knew the woman lived not too far, just in the city over, called Origicreatown.

 

What kind of name was that?

 

Sure, the city over, where Henry and Harrison normally lived, Inkwell, also had an odd name, but this one took the cake.

 

Ray sighed, leaning back. He decided he didn’t care. Wherever she lived, it was one person Johan trusted or cared about. But Johan being an uncle? Ray just couldn’t wrap his mind around it. The thought was completely absurd and laughable.

 

In fact, it was so ridiculous it made an idea of beautiful sense. He could picture a smiling Johan with a niece on his lap and a nephew or two hanging around him. Happy. A life he could have had, Ray supposed… yet not. Frivolous ideas like a good life for Johan were dumb and flippant, no real value to them. He was a dreamer with his life, and yet he lived in a nightmare. The crash that stole his father. His sister being stolen into a loving and precious relationship and leaving him in the sand. Being cut off from his family for an unknown reason he refused to tell Ray. The. Damn. Polio.

 

Ray remembered meeting Johan before he succumbed to the virus. 

 

He wasn’t happy, no, he just had lost his inheritance and was written out of a will. But he was always smiling, ever hopeful. He came by to see Angel Town, met the citizens, left, and came back a year and a half later in a wheelchair, still smiling, still hopeful.

 

_ Dreams can take you anywhere!  _ He had excitedly explained to Ray with a light in his eyes when they met again.  _ Just follow them, and they’ll lead you right where you need to go! _

 

Ha. Like straight to your grave, apparently.

 

Ray sighed, pulling his glasses off and rubbing the bridge of his nose. Johan was seriously hurting in more ways than one, and Ray was no psychologist. He did not know how to save him from his own mind. People did not need much mental help in Angel Town, so they managed. 

 

Johan wasn’t smiling anticipatively now. He wasn’t filled to the brim with bubbling, optimistic hope.

 

He was crying in his sleep. He was dejected and bitter, hopeless.

 

And for some reason, it was bleeding into Ray. How would they all ever get out of the Drew induced Hell? All he could think about were the words etched into Johan’s back -- who’s laughing now? No one was happy, the only slightly or pretendingly happy people were the people smashed at a bar with a terrified tender who couldn’t show his fear. Shawn was frightened out of his wits, and he took to never going home; as there’d always be  _ someone _ at the bar. Safer like that, with others around, he reasoned to Ray with a shaky laugh. 

 

He agreed with him.

 

These were more dangerous times than before, Joey becoming desperate and trying to extend his iron grip from Inkwell to Angel Town.

 

There already were very few people left in the whole of the region.

 

“Ray!” Johan called, groggily but panicked. Ray got up, slowly making his way to the other’s room. “Ray, please, where are you! You need to know what Joey’s planning! Ray! Please, oh God, Johan you idiot!”

 

Ray peered into the room. The paralyzed jet black haired man was gripping the blanket, leaning over with rushed breaths and hushed groans of pain. He was shaking.

 

“Are you cold, Mr. Drawn?” Ray asked, stepping in. Johan looked up at him with wide eyes, his mouth parting. Hope flashed in those brass eyes. Ray forced his back to be stiff and proper. This was a patient, not an old friend of his who would make medical jokes with him when he was studying or lonely when Lindsey was on the pastures. “You’re shivering.”

 

“I’m warm now that I can see you, Ray,” he replied smoothly just as he shook. “I… I don’t actually know why I’m freezing. Hey, Ray, where’s my shirt? And why’s everything blurry?”

 

“Try putting on your glasses, Drawn, they’re on the side table,” Ray instructed, the man so enthusiastically performing the action his poked his eye with one leg of the lens, blinking cattishly and caddishly to see him. Ray stared down at him with his hands firmly planted on his hips and his ‘Don’t screw with me, I’m a doctor’ aura abundant and displayed. “How are you.”

 

“I’m fine,” he answered, confused by his curtness and coldness. “Ray?”

 

“You’ll be able to leave when the scabs heal,” he said, keeping his expression blank. Not a friend. An enemy. He was healing an enemy. “Then you will report yourself to Officer Franks.”

 

“Ray, why the hell are you acting like this?” Johan’s voice was strained. Silence. Johan looked to his lap, blushing. He spoke quietly, regretful. “Ray… I’m sorry, okay? I know what I did was wrong and what I said was fucked up, but please forgive me. Ray, I didn’t mean it. God knows I would never want to hurt anyone, and that I could never hurt you ever. I’m so sorry, Ray, please… please forgive me.”

 

“Not fucking yet, you haven’t earned it,” Ray thundered, no longer able to contain himself, grabbing the other’s arm and blazing at him. “What the  **Hell** were you thinking, Johan?!” 

 

“I had to protect you, Ray.” was the immediate reply. “I couldn’t, I can’t bear the thought of hurting anyone ever again.”

 

“Fuck, fine,” Ray growled, but leaned over to him, looking him sharply in the eye. “Johan. Where the fuck were you.”

 

“If I knew, I would have phoned you to pick me up, because crawling back to you sure hurt my legs more than my heart,” he retorted. A smile must have wriggled it’s way onto Ray’s lips, as Johan beamed and brimmed with aspirations. Ray sighed internally, sitting on the end of the bed, it dipping slightly with his weight. Johan flung himself onto him, Ray almost jolting back with surprise. Johan buried his face, glasses and all, in Ray’s shoulder, inhaling the scent of Ray’s distinct aftershave and disinfectant. He very nearly cried (and possibly fainted) again from the almost overwhelming smell of  _ Ray _ . “I’m so happy you’re still alive.”

 

“Why wouldn’t I be?” was the knee jerk reply. Johan let out a strangled sound, a half laugh half moan. Ray didn’t like it. “J-Johan?”

 

“Joey… he said he’s gonna kill you,” Johan whimpered, clutching the doctor’s professoresque lab coat. “Ray, he’s going to murder you.”

 

“Hey… no one’s murdered me yet, okay?” Ray attempted to comfort him. “And the sheriff and deputy are alive, by the way.”

 

“Really!?” Ray had never seen so much relief shoved into one person. Johan was positively quivering with it (though it may have been cold) and his hands gripped Ray’s shoulders. “Oh, thank God! Oh, oh, good!”

 

One of his hands moved up, and Johan seemed to jerk closer, his face suddenly inches from Ray’s, his breath warm against his lips, but not touching. He looked at Ray through cloudy, but flashing eyes. They both stared, and Ray pretended to ignore the blush flooding onto Johan’s cheeks, instead pushing him to lie down.

 

“You’re starved,” Ray commented, getting up to bring him a bowl of the soup he had simmering. Johan’s mouth watered at the very thought of food, and he devoured the entire bowl --- and three more. Then promptly vomited about half of it into a trash can provided for that very purpose. Ray examined at him. He was shaking only a little less. Concern rushed into the doctor, he looked so frail, as though the lightest of touches could shatter him into a myriad of minuscule bits. “Do you know how much you ate while you were… gone per say?”

 

“They… the Butcher Gang, they refused to give me anything, so nothing,” Johan murmured, his eyes curiously blanking. Ray felt the air rush out of him.  _ Nothing for ten days _ ? Johan already had poor and horrifically sporadic eating habits, so it was no wonder at all that he looked like a skeleton! He stirred, continuing with an embarrassed expression. “Then… ha, Joey gave me food, and… well I’m a little ashamed, but I couldn’t help myself, I ate it, because I was so hungry… forgive me, but, um, I didn’t eat that much! Being told something was your very last meal kills your appetite more than you.”

 

_ No food for ten days until he was beaten to a shred. _

 

“Did they at least give you any water?”

 

“S-salt water, once… I didn’t know until it was too late, and I passed out after, I was so thirsty. I was begging for something to drink, I cried without tears because my body had nothing to give. Then… he, J-Joey, gave me cold seltzer, oh it was so good, cold seltzer and oh my God nothing ever tasted so pure and good… God I’m such a slut. I fucking drank from his cursed hands. Literally, Ray. I drank from his fingers. He put them in my mouth and poured the water over them, so I could drink.”

 

“You’re not a slut for being human,” Ray took his hand. Johan stared at the connected point. “Joey is just a shit. Say it with me, Joey a shit.”

 

“Joey a shit,” he confirmed, closing his eyes and relaxing. He abruptly sat back up, eyes flashing with urgency. “Ray, he’s planning on poisoning you and having it blamed on your medicines, please take care!”

 

“He’s going to have a hard time with that!” Ray laughed. Johan looked confused for a moment. “I’m a mithridatist! Immune!”

 

“You have a tolerance to arsenic? Cyanide!? How about monkshood?!”

 

Okay, scratch his previous statement.  _ This _ was the most relieved he’s seen Johan. He looked so joyous he could kiss him.

 

_ He could want to _ , whispered a little voice in Ray’s mind. He squashed it. Nonsense. Johan wasn’t like that, just over enthusiastic.  _ Suit yourself _ .

 

“Ray…” his voice was so happy as he slowly slipped back into a restful state. “Ray, you’re incredible.”

 

“Thanks Johan.”

 

He fell asleep. Ray glanced at the clock and balked. Half past midnight. He left to his own quarters and stared at the ceiling for another hour, thinking about Johan and who the hopeful man was to him, a viciously vile enemy. or a close and endearing friend, or something else entirely?

 

But then, even still, the question remained --- what was he?

 

Was he good or bad?

 

He fell asleep to tumultuous thoughts raging in his mind.


	5. Netting

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> again, esther kline belongs to phantomthief_fee!

The smell of food, coffee, and pages being rapidly flipped through woke him. He pushed his glasses on, pulling over his pyjamas his lab coat, and grabbed a bludgeon with which to beat an unexpected intruder. It was only Johan, the man sitting at the table in his spare wheelchair with volume upon volume of legal books surrounding his empty plate, four books on his lap and he was scanning the two rapidly in his hands. A page with neatly scrawled notes was held between his teeth by a corner. He tossed one book behind him, where Ray noted a large pile of other discarded publications. He had a maniac glint in his eyes, the glow almost appearing a ruddy red. Ray cleared his throat, dropping the weapon. Johan’s head jerked up to behold him, and he grinned.

 

“Ray! I’ve got him!”

 

“What?”

 

“I can catch Joey! All I have to do is pretend to sell you out to him, but I have to make sure no one but you knows!”

 

“W-why!?” Ray sputtered, shocked, but Johan sounded so confident. Ray folded his arms. “And who’s to say I agree with this scheme of yours!?”

 

“Ray. Ask yourself; do I want a shit out on our streets? No. Can we do something about it? Yes. We need absolute secrecy, though. No one can know of this. Ray, hear me out, and if you don’t like it, then, whatever!”

 

“... fine,” he acquiesced in a grumble, but honestly his interest was piqued. “Lay out the facts, Drawn, so don’t  _ draw _ it out.”

 

“I’ll just give you a  _ sketch _ of the details!”

 

“I hardly have an  _ ink _ ling of your idea!”

 

“Let me  _ paint _ it in technicolor,” he beamed, holding back laughter. Color, normal color, not color prompted by heat exhaustion or embarrassment, flowed into his face. He looked so much more human. “Alright, so we barely scrape together the  _ outline _ of a jury in this town, we have:” he counted on his fingers, “Connor, Franks, Lawrence, Flynn, Fain, Doe, Pendle, Campbell, Benton, Piedmont, Polk, your kid, Linda, and Cohen. However, we still need a judge. That can be left to the sheriff or the deputy. If! we catch Joey doing something wrong and no one witnesses it, we will be golden with an unbiased jury! Do you get what I’m saying?”

 

“That if we manage to trick Drew, we can… catch him, for good!”

 

“Yes!” Johan looked incorrigibly jejune. “Ray, we’ve got him! All we need to do is trick him well enough into believing us, and don’t worry a delightful hair on your head, I can do that well enough!”

 

“So you say you drugged me--”

 

“He’ll eat it like candy--”

 

“And catch him in the act!” they both shouted together, Ray’s eyes bright and Johan’s face flashing. They were close. 

 

So close, in fact, Ray could make out each individual spoke of color in the other’s eye. Johan hardly noticed, continuing.

 

“If we have even one or two witnesses, it’s still okay,” he grinned, leaning back in satisfaction. “Now, as long as no one knows I’m alive, I’m saf--”

 

“The sheriff and deputy know,” Ray interrupted. Johan was unperturbed, and answered; “Did I count them in the jury?”

 

“Someone else knows,” Ray muttered, quiet. One of Johan’s eyes snapped open to look at him with a sense of primal fear. The sound of machinery paused outside the door, followed by a sharp knock and muffled ‘thank you’. “Sorry. That must be her.”

 

“Her!?” Johan squeaked through his anxiety, rolling to hide in a different room just as Ray opened the door. Johan cussed internally and hissed a “Shit!” as he recognized the intruder. “Why her!?”

 

“Thanks,” A woman with greying dark brown hair entered, curtly asking where she should put her single suitcase, Ray directing her upstairs. Thomas poked in. “She your ex? Seemed pretty mad when she got your letter, Dr. Gamma. Or emotional.”

 

“A relative of a friend,” he shrugged, and bid Thomas a good day. A sharp hand grabbed his shoulder, yanking him down. “Yes, Joha--”

 

“Are you insane!?” he demanded in a hiss. “She’s going to kill me for almost getting murdered!”

 

“Well, you told me to contact her if you died.”

 

“Apparently the rumors of my death and others’ were greatly exaggerated, thank you very much!” he snarled, right in Ray’s face. “She does not need to be dragged into the mess, especially one I ma--”

 

“If you boys don’t mind me interrupting your little tête-à-tête,” Esther Kline cut in from the top of the staircase, Johan staring at her in a mix of admiration and pure terror. “I’d like a word with my brother.”

 

“Est, sister, how’ve you been, how’re the kids? Robert treating you well?” Johan attempted to deflect the attention from himself desperately. He muttered out of the corner of his mouth; “Ray, c’mon, help me out here.”

 

“As you know, Johan nearly was killed as of late,” Ray threw down the last nail onto Johan’s new coffin. He stared at him with a blank face denoting his absolute feeling of betrayal. Ray nudged him forward with a lighthearted smile. Priggish brat, Johan thought, scowling. “Maybe he could enlighten us both with the true details?”

 

“I’d be glad to know,” Esther replied, but only had narrow eyes for Johan. He squirmed under her burning gaze as she sat before the two men. “Alright Jojo, get talking. What happened.”

 

“Don’t call me that,” he muttered, before beginning his narrative with a sigh. “Well, for starters, I was a shit, not like that’s anything new, and I argued with Ray here before leaving this place. Now, like always, I made enemies -- only this time powerful ones….”


	6. whistle whip crack

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw for verbal and physical abuse

Johan’s head rang with the sheer force of the blow. He was dragged out and blindfolded, and he woke up groggily in the desert with hunger gnawing at his insides and thirst aching his chapped lips. His arms were tightly tied to the metal handlebars of his wheelchair. He watched as the Butcher Gang ate. He didn’t dare ask for food. He passed out.

 

He woke up starving, famished and parched. He was shaking, he was freezing. He couldn’t even rub his arms to warm himself. He could only quake, and slip back into dreams for food or drink.

 

He woke up to a slap in the face, dazing him even as his mind accelerated to accumulate the new data. His movements were jerky, and he couldn’t look up because of the sun’s burning light. He was still icy cold, his hands trembling. He wished Ray was there more than food.

 

“What a bitch,” one of them chuckled. Johan couldn’t tell who, but it had to be either Barley or Edgar, Charlie didn’t say stuff like that. “Look at him. He can’t even stand. No wonder Drew could control him so well.”

 

“Pl’se,” he slurred, unsure for what. “St’p, please….”

 

“Are you hungry?” a mocking tone was asked in his ear. He tried to stop himself from nodding but his body was acting on its own, responding enthusiastically with little whines and other piteous sounds Johan was appalled at, but couldn’t help but make. “Well, guess what? You can’t have anything!”

 

“Water, please,” he croaked, literally feeling his insides attack itself. “Hng, ‘m so thirsty, please, some water….”

 

“No.” was all he heard before his body shut down in agony.

 

“Hey,” Charlie muttered. Johan’s eyes fluttered open. “Hey, Johan.”

 

“What,” he breathed, hardly able to speak at all. “What, Char?”

 

“He wants you alive, for now, at least,” Charlie informed him, quiet and nervous, so unlike his usual pompous pridefulness. “Just so you know.”

 

“Some comfort,” he replied tersely, closing his eyes. “Well. Another day of pain then, I suppose.”

 

He was awakened by a flask shoved under his lips. He looked up in shock. His three captors grinned down at him. 

 

“Aren’t cha thirsty?” Barley giggled, tilting the flask slightly, allowing a few drops on Johan’s tongue. He nodded desperately, dignity gone and replaced with starvation and thirst. “Drink up, then, you shit.”

 

Liquid poured into his mouth, and he gratefully drank as much as he could, so desiccated he couldn’t notice the salty flavor. As soon as he did, however, his eyes widened and he felt himself beginning to cry, but there were no tears to shed. When the flask was drawn away, his lips stinging from the sodium and chlorine, he was begging and whining for water still, made thirsty again by the salt taking the liquid from his throat and limbs. The flask returned to the side of his head in a rough blow. The world turned as it went dark and he was thankful for that, the fact he wouldn’t have to suffer being awake.

 

The day, or next two, he couldn’t tell with all his being knocked about and hunger and thirst, were uneventful in any regard. Edgar would sometimes look at him with a solemn look, but no pity could be found.

 

He was awake and shivering when he came. Even in sand, his distinct footsteps could be heard to Johan’s sunburnt ears. A cane went under his chin, forcing him to look up. Blood dripped from his cracked lips. Despite everything, fear couldn’t even edge into his limbs from his pain.

 

“You took me by surprise, Johan, telling the Doctor of Angel Town about the death of the sheriff of Inkwell,” he grinned, “being a mayor is hard work, you know, especially when the sheriff of your city is known to be dead. If you had said who killed him, well, you wouldn’t be sitting here.”

 

“Maybe I should have shouted it from the rooftops,” Johan replied in a rasping voice, “and then jumped.”

 

“Johan, Johan… pity, you could have been great,” Joey looked down at him. If Johan had any liquid left he would have spat in the man’s face. “Bring him the food, and untie his hands.”

 

**Food** ?! Nevermind his previous statement, he would have done anything for the man before him now, even gotten to his knees for him, anything. His mouth watered at the bare idea of eating. He didn’t even know what he was given, he was famished, he ate the moment his hands were free. What a pig, his thoughts berated him, throwing him further down, but he could care less. Once a scoundrel, always a scoundrel, he supposed.

 

“I hope you’re enjoying your last meal, Johan,” Joey’s voice tore his thoughts apart. He swallowed whatever was in his throat, but a lump remained. He stared at the food he held, and found he wasn’t so hungry anymore. A chuckled interrupted his mind further. “Never knew my brother was such a slut.”

 

Johan glanced up, but instantly looked back at the ground, burning in shame. He was just a needy slut, wasn’t he?

 

“You’re going to die in two days.”

 

He found he didn’t mind.

 

“And your precious…” a hand reached into Johan’s shirt, withdrawing a locket and tore it off, the metal falling off onto the ground. Johan stared with terror in his eyes as Joey clicked it open, and amusement filled the man’s face. “Oh, really! You really are a whore, aren’t you! Here’s Esther, naturally, but Ray!? The good doctor! I knew something about you was off, but so  _queer_ ! And judging by your face, it's not reciprocated, is it? Never thought you were a sod, but it’s… fitting.”

 

He crushed the locket in a fist, breaking the metal, Johan watching the pieces fall and land in the sand helplessly and hopelessly. Joey forced him to look at him.

 

“Is this why your mother replaced you with me in the will?”

 

Johan looked back blankly, eyes flicking to the locket’s crushed remains.

 

“Oh, Johan, dear little brother…” he purred, grinning, easily understanding. “You don’t need to worry about that anymore. After all, you’ll die in two days, and Ray... he’s going to follow you a week after.”

 

“P-please, I’ll do anything, don’t hurt him or Lindsey or Esther! Please!” He was aware that he was already ravenous again, but he would rather have died without knowing Ray was going to be killed because of his slip up that Harrison was alive and Henry was dead.  “Please, you can do anything to me, just please don’t hurt them! I’ll do anything, please!”

 

“Anything?”

 

“Yes, yes, I swear, I’ll do anything!”

 

“Then it’s going to happen. You’re going to go through this. That is what you’ll do, Johan  _Drew_ . Now you’ll die knowing you caused the ruin of Angel Town, and you are the one who killed Doctor Ray Gamma.”

 

Johan was not sure how no one heard his wailing lament.

 

He was pleading and begging for two days straight. He never once asked for his own life, only trying to appease for Ray’s.

 

When execution day came, Joey stared down at the miserable man before him with a smug smirk. He pulled a gun from his suit. Johan narrowed his eyes and straightened his back. If this was happening, he was going to die with the slightest amount of dignity he could muster.

 

Joey seemed unperturbed.

 

He loaded the revolver and spun it into place, checking the bullet.

 

“Tell me, Johan,” Joey mused as he cocked it, putting it before Johan. “Is Ray’s life really worth more than yours?”

 

“N-- Yes!” He anticipated the opposite question but caught himself. He scowled at the smiling man. “It  _is_ .”

 

“Hm. Pity.”

 

**Bang.**

 

Johan quaked as he opened his eyes. He felt no wound. Was he dead?

 

“Don’t think I’m giving you a straight ticket out of here, Johan.”

 

He really should have realized that before. Joey had fired a blank.

 

“I’m going to make you wish you were never born.”

 

“You don’t need to do that, it’s been done.”

 

**Smack.**

 

“Don’t be a smartass.”

 

“Well, I’ve been having trouble with my head, and well, _something_ needs the intelligence.”

 

**Crack.**

 

One of his lenses suddenly had a large chiasm of broken glass, but it remained in place. He coughed as blood ran down his throat, leaving him dizzy and wheezing. A hand yanked him up by the hair.

 

“Thirsty, Johan?”

 

“For justice.”

 

“Shut up.”

 

Two fingers were shoved into his dry mouth. They tasted of hell’s ink and devilish plans. He looked up at Joey.

 

Joey poured water onto his hand, it spilling into Johan’s mouth. He didn’t dare drink it for fear it was more salt water.

 

“It’s seltzer,” Joey grinned. “Suck.”

 

He knew he must look like a class one whore, but he did just that, licking the carbonated water from his fingers. He was glad they weren’t  _actual_ brothers, and that he never considered the man torturing him to be related. Joey began to retract his hand, and he moaned desperately for the water, leaning forwards as much as he could. Joey snickered. 

 

“Maybe I should keep you around for myself,” he mused. Johan glanced up at him with hope from his fingers, maybe he’d have mercy on the others as well. “I’d have to kill Ray to fully break you, though.”

 

Ah, yes, the catch. He jerked away, more disgusted with himself than ever before for even contemplating such an action. Joey laughed.

 

“Fine. Is that your final answer?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Really?”

 

Johan spat in his face, then laughed.

 

“Ugh, you’re twelve times as stubborn than when you left! You three, it’s time for you to have some fun.”

 

Johan was jostled out of his wheelchair and held down to the ground. They jumped on him and kicked him and he could  _hear_ his ribs break. He shrieked and laughed helplessly as his clothing was torn off, but he couldn’t do anything but laugh. 

 

“Hold him tight, and won’t you shut up, would you?” Joey ordered. He struggled with every ounce of strength left in him, which, despite it all, he still had a store of. He laughed through it all. The pain was too much for him, and he trembled against the sand, looking up at the looming figure above him, outlined and haloed by the blazing sun. Was he divine, or was he a demon? “Turn him around, hold him up. He needs to… learn a lesson. Recall those, Johan?”

 

He was being held by his arms, his back straight while he was on his knees. A position recalled from years before.

 

There was the faint sound of a belt undoing, a  _crack_ whistling through the air, Johan flinching at the mere noise through his inane giggling.

 

The metal of the belt touched his back briefly, then returned back with a snap, instantly reviving bruises of a past time.

 

Deliver of divine justice? Ha, no.

 

Demon. Absolutely. He laughed.

 

And couldn’t stop. He was shaking with it as he guffawed.

 

“Hey, hey, big, ha, big brother,” he laughed maniacally as the makeshift whip landed time and time again. “Remember when I’d call ya that? Ha, hee, well, you’re really a demon, didja know?”

 

Joey clearly didn’t appreciate it.

 

“Count, Johan. Let’s start again, to fifty. Now, here we go!”

 

“One!” he shouted out as the whip crashed against his back. He laughed between the blows. “Joey, this is just like ol- Nine! O-old times….”

 

He was sagging to the ground by the time he made it to fifty, sweating and bleeding, his head down and chest heaving. The two holding him up dropped him. He groaned as he landed, breathing heavily as spurts of laughter escaped his throat, joined by blood trickling out of his lips.

 

“Barley, your knife, if you please.”

 

Oh, he was fucked. It made him laugh harder.

 

He didn’t know a person could scream so long and so hard, especially if they were laughing so much. 

 

A ring of cold fire pressed to his back after the knife was finally removed. There was a cocking noise. No, oh fuck! He laughed.

 

“See you never… little brother.”

 

**_Bang_.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> they're step brothers.


	7. lash out

Johan left out some parts of the relay. He told them the bare minimum. Shame pervaded his feelings. He acted disgracefully. He didn’t leave those bits out, rather, he left out the little fact of his… deviance, the whipping, and his actual relationship with his step brother.

 

Esther stared at him with a mixture of horror and anger.

 

“What on Earth were you thinking!?” she authoritated, her brows furrowed as she attempted to make sense of her brother’s actions. “You could have died of thirst, or or, of hunger or of your wounds or, what the heck!? Why would you anger someone like that?! Why didn’t you think about what you were doing! You’re just as reckless as you were!”

 

“Oh, great, just what I need, more berating!” Johan rolled his eyes. “Lovely, it’s not like I tell myself those things every day. Look, Esther, go home; you don’t have to deal with me. Just go. Go home, Esther. I’m fine.”

 

“Stop being so stubborn!” she groaned. “It’s like you’re still twelve!”

 

“Stop breathing down my neck!” Johan retorted, gritting his teeth. “I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself!”

 

“Excuse me?!  _ I’m  _ breathing down  _ your _ neck?!” she outburst, jumping to her feet. “I hardly knew where you were for the past ten years!”

 

“Because whenever you’d show up it would always come with criticism!” Johan shot back angrily. He put on an air of Esther. Her eye twitched. “‘Oh, Jojo, drawing isn't going to get you anywhere, listen to mother and get a real job. Johan, stop being a copycat and becoming an attorney, it doesn’t fit you. Brother dear, why are you trying to go into medicine, isn't it a little too deep for you?’  **That** is why, Esther! You never just let me be!”

 

“Maybe because you can’t see past the end of your nose!” she snarled. Ray squirmed in his seat, feeling horribly out of place. “You’re too stuck!”

 

“And you’re too damn pompous and holier-than-thou!”

 

“Well,” Esther cleared her throat, and it dawned on Ray that she was a lawyer, a good one at that. “One of us needs to act like a responsible adult and it's obviously never going to be you!”

 

“Oh, shove it up yours!” Johan barked. Esther balked, surprised, allowing him to continue his reply. “I am an adult, and I have been for years!”

 

“You  _ ran away  _ like a baby, Johan!”

 

“Mom disowned me,” he began quietly, as though remembering the moment, before regaining his anger, “for your information!”

 

“That’s no reason to run away!” Esther protested, shaking her head. “Honestly! You could have come to me!”

 

“You were in college, how the hell would I have gone to you!?” Johan huffed a laugh. “Oh, hey Est, Dad just died and Mom remarried, I have a new last name now and I just was cut off from our family, mind if I dorm with you while you struggle through misogynistic and incredibly difficult work and university?! Thanks! Now, um, hey, do you think you could put up with my polio too!?  **Great** .”

 

“Johan,” she said reproachfully. “You could have spoken to me, at least!”

 

“You were dating and happy!” he shouted back. Ray was suddenly glad his walls were (relatively) soundproof. “I wasn’t going to interfere in that!”

 

“The first person I seriously dated hurt me, a lot,” she informed him. His anger dropped for a moment, but swiftly returned, like waves. “I dated him because I was alone and dad just died.”

 

“I’m sorry that you had to go through something like that, but how should I have known!?”

 

“By talking to me!”

 

“You would never talk!” he cried out, raking a hand through nearly pitch hair. “Things are fine, you’d say, and then ask about me! Well, newsflash, I don’t like talking about me, because I’m such a worthless failure!”

 

The room fell quiet. Johan fiddled with his fingers impatiently, Ray felt humiliatingly in the wrong place at the wrong time, and Esther gaped at her little brother.

 

She sighed and sat down, rubbing her forehead. 

 

“Johan…” she very nearly whispered, shaking her head softly. “You’re not a failure. Please… please don’t say things like that about yourself.”

 

“Esther. I…” he choked on his words. He looked away and covered his mouth with a hand. “Estie, can I have a hug?”

 

“Always, Jojo,” she murmured, and wrapped her arms around him. He gripped her tightly. She smelled of hard work, old books, and homeliness. One of her hands gently ran through his hair. It felt right. This was where he belonged, with his sister near and Ray within reach. Her other hand began to stroke his back, before she froze, touching the huge amount of gauze concealed by his shirt and sweater. “Johan, what’s on your back?”

 

“Nothing,” he quickly denied, jolting away. She looked at the doctor, and he nodded, his face grim. Esther turned to back to Johan. “Ray, c’mon!”

 

“We need to change the bandages anyways,” Ray said matter-of-factly. Johan looked like he’d rather give a cactus a haircut. “Look, Johan, I doubt you even know the full damage that you got.”

 

“I swear to the fact I’m headed straight for hell, I’m perfectly fi-- SHIT!” he grimaced as a stitch of pain shock waved through his body. He bit his lip at Esther’s unamused gaze. “Heh, I’m… I’m alright, okay? No need to fuss over me.”

 

“It’s really… really… awful.” Ray denoted him. “Like, supremely the worst.”

 

“Ray, you suck,” Johan pouted, uncrossing his sullenly, leaning his head on his hand with a huff. “It’s not that bad, I mean it.”

 

“Jojo, you’ve always been stubborn, but now is not the time to implement it,” she sighed, but had a light and nervous smile. Ray got up and led both of them to the ‘ward’, and Johan exhaled slowly and began to take off his sweater and bow tie, then his shirt, and finally the tee he wore underneath it all, but sat with his front to his sister. Esther gently turned him. “Let’s just see whaOH MY GOD, WHAT THE FUCK?!”

 

“Told you it was horrible,” Ray shrugged. Johan frowned. “ _ He _ , uh, doesn’t actually know what’s there. After all, he came in yesterday. So, well, I uh. I haven’t told him, he’s only been coherent for the past two hours or so.”

 

“Wait, told me what?” Johan asked, confused. He looked at Esther’s face, noting horror and gloom. “What is on my back? I thought he just stabbed me and shot me.”

 

“Well. Joey did that,” Ray muttered, getting more disinfectant and swathing Johan’s scabbing wounds. He hissed his discomfort. “Thing is, Johan, he also left a message.”

 

“Who’s laughing now?” Esther echoed the words, reaching to touch, but yanking her hand back. Anger flooded her face. Johan gulped. A furious Esther was no laughing matter. “Who did you say did this to you? Joey, the mayor of Inkwell? Well, that son of a bitch doesn’t know what’s coming for him.”

 

“Estie, it’s okay, just as long as no one else gets hurt,” Johan attempted to appease her. Not the most successful endeavor. “Esther. Listen to me. Joey,” he shuddered, but didn’t seem aware of it, “Is dangerous to everyone, me, Ray, the sheriff -- and the most dangerous part id that he has other people do his dirty work for him. He can’t just be caught, and he only shows up for the most valuable people or someone he specifically wants to teach a lesson; such as myself. Ray and I have a plan to catch him, but it’s… tricky. If you get caught up in it… you’re going to get hurt… o-or killed… I can’t take that, Esther. You’re my big sister, but sometimes the younger one needs to take care of the older, you know?”

 

“Yes, I guess sometimes they do,” she replied quietly after a pause, hugging him gently. She held back her tears, but couldn’t contain them for too long. She rocked with him, her little brother. He wasn’t so small anymore, he was an adult and had made a (albeit a little crooked) career for himself as a medical defense attorney and an artist, all three of those things something he was discouraged from doing when he was younger. She groaned and held him tighter. “Oh, Jojo, you really did grow up. I never thought you would, but here you are, my little brother. With responsibility and everything.”

 

“I missed you. So much, Esther.”

 

It was almost so soft she didn’t hear it. She let her tears fall. No one was around, it was just her and her hurting brother. 

 

And the good doctor.

 

As she pulled away, a palm came to rest on Johan’s shoulder. Ray smiled down at them softly.

 

“Let’s get you patched up, aye?” he asked, raising the bandages he held. Johan scrubbed at his red eyes, pushing up his glasses to mask them with the cracked lens’ pink tint. He nodded. Esther held his hand while Ray covered him with the new bandages. She duly wondered at the way his hands warmed up when Ray began to work. “There. Shouldn’t take more than a month to heal up completely, but Johan, there’ll always… be a scar of it. It’s not gonna be pretty, and you might have a hard time stretching because of it.”

 

“Ray. I’m in a wheelchair, like, right now,” he jovially replied. “It’s a  _ stretch _ to assume I’ll exercise.”

 

“But you might need to  _ exorcise _ the demonic pain in your chest every so often though,” Ray held back laughter. Esther stared out the window, keeping her face blank. “It’s nothing to  _ drevil _ in.”

 

“That one was  _ hellish _ ,” Johan cackled. Esther’s eye twitched. “Seems like you’re playing with hell _ fire _ , aren’t you?”

 

“Well, you set off the  _ spark _ !” Ray ‘defended’. Esther’s lips crept up, but she forced herself to pout. Even when Johan was little, he had a way with words and could play them like a piano (He also was very good at the piano). But it seemed that he met his match for a pun master in Ray. “It’s  _ smoking  _ up the room with bad jokes!”

 

“You wound me, Doctor, and you set the stakes too high for good puns,” Johan feigned hurt, a dramatic hand on his chest. He always had a back up plan, and knew it. “Alas, I have no extras!” Really? “ _ Spare _ me the pain and  _ burn  _ me at  _ stake _ for the risk!”

 

“Well saved, sir, but have you considered that for dinner?” Ray boomed in his laughter. Esther rubbed her forehead with a ‘groan’, barely concealing her smile. “As is customary, one must always take one out to dinner before destroying them.” A grin bloomed over his face. “In bed.”

 

Johan seemed to die of laughter then. 

 

Esther slow clapped.

 

“Excellently done, Ray,” Johan remarked, wiping away his tears of happiness. Ray was delighted to see that hope back in them. “In bed.”

 

“Oh, shut up you two,” Esther huffed, masking her internally giggling with annoyance. They looked at each other and giggled like school boys. “Absolutely not. I am not saying the line. No. Not now, not ever. Johan, you need some rest. Go to sleep.”

 

“Where?”

 

“In your room.”

 

“Where in my room?”

 

“In bed, of cour-... god… damnit.”

 

Both men burst out laughing. Esther smiled at little to herself, rolling her eyes at their antics.

 

Johan started coughing from laughing so hard, Ray’s head pressed to his shoulder as he shook with silent mirth.

 

“We need to do some more law research, Ray,” Johan reminded him as he finished coughing, his face still tickled pink. “Hey, Est, mind joining us?”

 

“Sure, why not?” she shrugged, going over a paper Johan passed her. She quirked an eyebrow. “Are you sure he’d fall for that?”

 

“Sister, you don’t know me if you think I can’t pull the wool over anyone’s eyes,” he replied. “Well, except maybe yours.”

 

“And you said you needed law help?”

 

“Yeah, we need to know exactly what evidence we’d need.”

 

“Alright, let’s get this show on the road. You’ll need at least one witness, and each of you qualify, and what else….”


	8. loosen and lighten

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the plan is not within the chapter to avoid the Spoilers  
> however, gayness is within the johan to the Doctor
> 
>  
> 
> that is all thank you

They spent seven hours going over the plan, arguing and figuring out what loopholes Joey might try to use and sealing them off in one tight knot. Another hour was spent on polishing out the details, and finally,  _ finally _ , they completed their web.

 

“Done!” Johan beamed, shoving away the document. “I thought we’d be stuck here all night, but nope! Ha! I can’t wait to see that dick’s face when we get him good!”

 

“Me neither,” Esther smiled, a savage and furious grin. “He’ll learn not to mess with my little brother! Ooh, this is great.”

 

“I think,” Ray began, getting up and going to fetch something from the kitchen, returning with a bottle of alcohol and three glasses. “That we all deserve a little celebration.”

 

“For what, not dying?” Johan snarked, smirking lightly. Ray rolled his eyes and filled a glass for each. Johan raised his. “Good enough reason for anything, I suppose. To catching Joey!”

 

“And to the growth of medicine!” Ray added with a smile. They looked to Esther. “And you, m’lady, what would you like to enhance, perchance?”

 

“To family,” she nodded, grinning. Ray tipped his head to her, then threw back to drain his glass. She sipped hers and Johan downed his rather quickly. But it was a family trait, a high tolerance to alcohol. Ray clearly was not as proficient, holding is liquor in his mouth before swallowing it with a disgusted face Johan laughed at. She leaned to Johan, and told him in a whisper; “Bet he won’t last fifteen minutes.”

 

“You’d be surprised,” Johan answered, already put in a good mood, He normally drank very cautiously, but in the light of his recent near death, he decided he was due a little compensation from the world. Ray on the other hand, drank often. Johan's eyes flicked to Ray, then dropped. He drank another shot, hoping to use the heat of alcohol to mask the  _ other  _ flush. Esther quirked an eyebrow. “Ray can last quite a while on nothing but a bottle of rum.”

 

“Hey, don’t oust me like that, Johan!” he replied, already bright red and grinning widely. “You and I both know that that was caused by a crazy stressful phd board exam!”

 

“One you passed completely drunk!”

 

“What can I say? I’m an excellent doctor!”

 

He laughed. Esther sipped more of her drink and watched Johan become completely enraptured by the other’s mirth, gazing at him doe eyed, and dreamy. Oh, really now? She smiled.

 

“Isn’t his laugh nice?” she asked Johan with a wink, him jolting and nearly dropping his glass. He gaped at her, his flush from ‘alcohol’ deepening. “It’s loud but not annoying or obnoxious.”

 

“Yeah, he- HIS LAUGH is really nice,” Johan replied loudly, scarlet. “I, uh,” he reached for the bottle, and refilled his glass. “Echm. Yeah.”

 

The men slowly took more and more, both red faced and laughing themselves dry, and thus making them drink all the more. Esther just grinned, leaned back, and watched the scene unfold. A part of her was just so happy that Johan, who had been socially aloof and awkward in his younger years, had found someone he could truly relate to as a friend. However, the more she thought about it, the more worried she found herself getting. Ray was obviously a charming but oblivious man, and it worried her. She worried Johan would get hurt, as her brother was absolutely charmed by him and the other was completely oblivious to his entrancement. That fear slowly dissipated as the bottle grew more empty, both of them leaning into each other’s space, swaying and inebriated. Johan was humming a tune from their childhood, Ray’s low tones filling the gap with soft singing. He sang well, though slurred by intoxication, and he leaned his head on Johan’s shoulder. He was shorter than him, Esther noted, by quite a bit, but the fact was she never saw Johan standing. Correction, never when he was an adult. She wondered if she was still taller than him, but judging by his long, string bean form, she doubted it. He really had grown  _ up _ .

 

Good god. The alcohol must be getting to her.

 

It was almost ironic, coming into Angel Town or Devil City or whatever the Hell it was called expecting her brother to be dying or dead, and here he was, his heart beating in more ways than one. 

 

She never really saw Johan as a teen, and so never knew if he had been in love before, but this looked like his first time truly in love, with the dopey excited look in his eye and the nervous air in his smile. 

 

It was so sweet, she decided to ‘help’. She refilled their glasses, glancing at her brother, who, although he was well past blackout drunk, gave her an inquisitive look. He looked at the cup in his hands intensely, as though unsure how it ended up there. Esther took his ‘blindness’ to whisper in Ray’s ear; “Tell Johan he’s handsome.”

 

“He is, ain’t he? Classy type a’ twink,” he hummed back happily, dazed by drink. “Hey, hey Johan? Gotta tell ya som’thin’, ya know?”

 

“What’s it,” he asked, eyes closed as he was leaned back. “If it’s that you’re drunk again, I can very well see that, Ra--”

 

“You’re handsome,” he remarked, one of his hands clumsily tucking some of Johan’s wild hair behind his ear. Esther watched as scarlet became maroon. His face screamed ‘sister you have betrayed me’ when he noticed her covered smile. “Like, really, really handsome. Almost a diamond, and you’re always so hopeful. It’s becoming and handsome.”

 

“You’re handsome too, Ray,” Johan shrugged, smiling crookedly. “Handsome. You an’ me. Two handsome dudes and one sister.”

 

“Mm. Maybe,” Ray smirked, using his hand (which never left from the side of Johan’s face) to make little scratches to the point right under his ear and right after his jaw bone, Johan smiling with his eyes drooping and leaning into the touch, completely taken over. “Or maybe you’re just really cute. Cute and handsome.”

 

“Beautiful, Ray, that’s what you are,” Johan replied, eyes completely shut, and joy written across his features. Ray’s face light up, and he administered his actions more enthusiastically. Johan sighed. “So… so good. So good to me. Ray, you’re an angel, you know? Beautiful….”

 

Esther grinned and took another sip. Ray suddenly became aware of what he was doing, and slowly stopped. Johan, still smiling softly, held Ray’s hand to his face where it was and nuzzled into it. Ray stared at him, then began laughing. Johan looked up in surprise, but docily.

 

“Look at us,” Ray chuckled. “Why hasn’t this happened before?”

 

“I, uh, dunno,” Johan giggled. The two’s eyes met again, and they cracked up, before falling into guffaws. “H-h-holy shitttt….”

 

Ray and he laughed so hard they literally cried, both choking on their laughter. Ray swooped him out of his wheelchair, spinning him around gently, and Johan was so tired from alcohol and just  _ life  _ that he nuzzled himself against him and let himself be carried up the stairs. Esther laughed a little to herself incredulously before following to go up to her own temporary room.

 

‘Johan is going to have one heck of a time when he wakes up,’ she mused to herself before getting into her bed and letting dream like memories fill her mind. ‘Hope it’s not a bad one.’

 

_ “Hey, Esther, are you still going out with Harold?” Johan’s mid puberty voice asked quietly, cracking and hushed. She looked at him. He blinked back at her. “I’m just wondering.” _

 

_ “Might break up with him,” she shrugged. Harold was two years younger than her and three older than Johan. “But he asked me to the movies… not sure if I want to go. Maybe I’ll break up with him there?” _

 

_ “I can go for you,” he volunteered with a bright smile. “I like movies!” _

 

_ “What if he tries to hold your hand?” Esther joked. Johan looked at her solemnly. “Or tries to wrap his arm around your shoulder?” _

 

_ “I am willing to take the risk,” Johan replied, straightening his back. “If he wants to do any of that, I’ll take the blow for you.” _

 

_ “Even if he wants to kiss you?” _

 

_ Wait, was he blushing? _

 

_ “E-even then.” _

 

_ She ended up ditching Harold to play a board game with Johan. _


	9. warm embarrassment (with a touch of anxiety)

Warm. He was warm, and it felt lovely, like floating on clouds. Cozy. Contentedness filled him, and he snuggled up to the heat source. Funny. Do heat sources breathe? He didn’t care, and hummed a little in his calmness. Just soft and sweet. Something was gently rubbing his back, and it felt so nice. Another thing teased with his hair, pushing it back and running through it. Big and caressing movements. Johan hadn’t realized how touch starved he really was until that moment. 

 

**Hold the _fuck_ up. **

 

Touch. Someone was touching him, not just that, but fondling, loving strokes. He lifted his head, yet the world weighed too much, and he dropped back, head landing on a rising and falling softness with a quiet groan. A heartbeat lulled him to cuddle up to the being. It was so warm, comforting, and good. He smiled against him, happy where he was and wishing the moment to last.

 

“Mornin’, heh, Johan,” the voice smugly greeted him. He froze as he heard it. He knew that voice. A chuckle ran through it, and Johan recognized it, his head snapping back up to stare at him. “Cutie.”

 

“R-Ray!?” was all he managed to sputter, a bright red blush smothering his cheeks. The doctor grinned at him lazily, his red hair poking up all over the place, like sparks. Johan stared in shock. Internally he was a mess, his mind screaming in a panic. ‘Oh my god I’m in Ray’s  _ bed _ , what the hell, how, why, did we  _ do _ something like…  _ that _ !?’

 

He was still wearing the t shirt he had worn under his sweater and shirt the day before, and he didn’t feel any dirty inner satisfaction or sticky, so that was a good sign. He was also still wearing his dress pants, and they’d end up smelling like Ray’s bed, he just knew it. Ray’s arm was wrapped around him, hand resting on Johan’s hip, rubbing small circles.

 

“You passed out the moment I put you down on my bed,” Ray chuckled. Johan felt a relieved sigh escape him. “How’s your head? Need any coffee or anything like that? Painkiller?”

 

“N-no, thank you,” he stuttered. He pushed himself to sit up, putting his glasses on. Ray’s clever eyes followed his motions, and he put his glasses on as well. “Ray, are we doing this today?”

 

“This is what?” he questioned, getting up and going to shave in his private bathroom connected to his bed room. “Is ‘this’ meaning annoying each other to shreds? Hopefully not, I don’t know about you but my head is trying to kill me from the inside.”

 

“Well, I was referring to catching Drew,” Johan replied, leaning off the bed and grabbing his shirt, snatching one of the pairs of crutches he hid around the house (from under Ray’s bed) and getting himself ready for the day. “We need to let the sheriff and Harrison know, to make this go as smoothly as possible.”

 

“Sounds alright,” Ray responded to his idea. “Should I call them?”

 

“If you can,” Johan replied, getting out of the bed, fully ready for the day (little did he know he was not in the least prepared), and made his way downstairs. Esther was sitting by the table, drinking earl grey tea, reading the news and finding nothing of worth. “H-hey sister.”

 

“Good morning, Johan,” she answered with a smug tone. “How was your night? Slept well? And again,  _ slept _ well?”

 

“Look, Esther, while I appreciate your support, I do not appreciate you getting into my business,” he muttered, pouring himself a cup of steaming coffee, sitting beside her. She chuckled. “I’m serious!”

 

“I am too,” was her curt retort. “But if my brother calls someone beautiful, I damn well am going to help him!”

 

“I did call him that, didn’t I?” he said in a echoed voice. His face planted to the table. “Wake me in ten years.”

 

“Aw, quit being so overdramatic,” Esther swatted at him. He rose his head in a pout.  “God, you’ve always been such a drama queen.”

 

“At least I’m not a pilllllll…” he trailed off, turning a bright red. Esther rose an eyebrow, Johan tugging at his collar and clearing his throat. “Neve-”

 

“Nope, I’m not ‘neverminding’!” she grinned. Johan turned an even darker red. “You have to tell me what you were saying.”

 

“Really, Est, why?”

 

“Jojo, you know you can and have to tell me everything.”

 

“You probably won’t get it,” he sighed, blushing. “I meant to say, at least I’m not a pillow princess… it’s a slang term.”

 

“Heard of it, don’t know what it means,” Esther replied, lying through her teeth, just wanting to tease him. “Spit it out.”

 

“Uh, a queer person who lets their partner do all the… um…  _ work _ .” Johan shifted, blazing red. “N-not that I’d be against it but I’m not one, alri-”

 

“Oh, I’m  _ sure  _ you would be one, princess~,” Ray chuckled deeply, coming down the stairs. He ran a hand through Johan’s hair, sliding on his lab like coat. “I’m going to get Harrison and the Sheriff, I’ll be back in a bit.”

 

Esther began cracking up at Johan’s face. He was both heavily stunned and equally mortified, a blush accompanying his blankened gaze. He dropped his head into his hands.

 

“He called me  _ princess _ , what the fuck,” he mumbled, then realized Ray had overheard that part of their conversation. “He called me a fucking  _ pillow princess _ , holy fuck… oh my god I can never show my face again.”

 

“Well, Ray’s not wrong,” Esther responded with a smirk, sipping her tea. “I’d never imagine you as a top.”

 

“Oh my god, why are you doing this?” Johan groaned, leaning back with his arm still covering his face. “This is not a conversation I ever expected to have with you.”

 

“What, is my little brother’s sex health not important?” she questioned, watching his already humiliated expression worsen. He was legitimately a tomato at this point. “Come now Johan, you’re pretty easy to pin.”

 

“As a needy bottom, I suppose,” he grumbled. Esther rose an eyebrow at his sullen tone. “I thought that I cover up being… you know, homosexual, well, well. I guess not.”

 

“I think you’re doing pretty great at everything so far,” she praised. He perked up a little, pulled a little out of his disheartened mood. “I just know becau--”

 

“Because big sister always knows more than mom,” he finished the saying of their childhood, smiling softly. “Esther, you’re the best.”

 

“You’re being far too generous,” Esther answered with a smile of her own. “You know I’m only mostly the best.”

 

“Who’s this?” Harrison’s chipper voice cut in, the man strutting in with Henry, Ray following. “Ah, you are Esther Kline? I’m Harrison.”

 

“Pleasure to meet you,” she replied, noticing Johan sulk and roll his eyes. “And I presume you are Sheriff Henry?”

 

“You presume correct,” he nodded, seating himself at the table, specifically picking out a seat directly across from Johan. The man paled and squirmed under his scathing gaze. “Now, we have heard that you have a plan to catch Joey? Let’s hear it. From  _ you _ .”

 

“... Okay,” he gulped, voice cracking, and almost a squeak, grabbing the paper and clearing his throat to read it. Ray flashed him a thumbs up from his place behind Harrison. He smiled shakily in reply. “So, Joey has various hideouts, making the only logical way to catch him being by luring him out….”


	10. sir, your surname shall strike sorrow. i know.

“Surprisingly, this is pretty solid,” Harrison commented. Johan sighed internally with relief. Ray beamed and Esther looked satisfied. “It looks like we’re going to give Joey a run for his money.”

 

“Deserves it,” Johan muttered, leaning back. “Make him chase after every single stolen penny, I say.”

 

“Agreed, for once,” Henry nodded towards him. “And I congratulate you, Mr. Drawn, for actually helping society for once.”

 

Johan chuckled before noticing his sister’s confused expression, and he paled faster than a horse being chased by wolves would gallop.  _ Ohh shit _ .

 

“Wh- what? Who?” silence fell over the table, four pairs of eyes looking to her, three with confusion and one in mortal fear. “Who is  _ ‘Drawn’ _ ?”

 

“Is… isn't Drawn your last name?” Ray asked slowly, turning to burn holes into Johan’s skull. Johan looked back like a deer in the headlights fully aware it was about to be roadkill. Harrison glared at him, and Henry studied him meticulously. He stopped breathing.  _ Why is this happening? Why now!? Why couldn’t it wait for when he’d be dead!? _ “Johan, I swear to God, if you were lying this whole time, the term doctor of death will become true for you.”

 

“I guess you should dig m-my grave now, if I even deserve one, which by the by, I don’t,” Johan chuckled in a whimper. Ray’s face shifted from mad to enraged to pissed. His hands balled into fists, and he got up to tower over Johan. Johan swallowed but looked back with remorse and fear in his eyes. He spoke, his voice wavering and tearful. “It’s not… it’s not Drawn. I’m so sorry… I’m so sorry….”

 

His head was in his hands, tears spilling between his fingers. He offered an explanation through a broken and groaning voice.

 

“It’s… it’s Drew…” he let out a strangled laugh at all their shocked expressions. “But... wh-when your… oh god… when your step brother is  _ the _ J-Joey Drew, how can you keep your name?”

 

He was shaking and sobbing into his hands quietly.

 

“He was… terrifying, and still is, I don’t know how I  _ survived _ . He….”

 

Johan closed his mouth, suddenly hugely embarrassed. Ray looked compassionate but vastly disappointed. Harrison looked like the priggish ‘I told you so’, directing the sentiment to Henry. Henry seemed… proud? But it was too hard to tell with his blank expression. Esther stared at him with realization crossing her face. She was already in college when their mother remarried, and didn’t change her last name from Ramirez. She received a letter from Johan, however, reading, ‘mom made me change my last name with her, and it is now Drew’. She hadn’t noticed how shaky the writing had been, the “D” wavering and sharp. Johan let out a breathy laugh with evolved into maniac cackling. 

 

“He didn’t recognize me at first,” he tittered, a grin plastered on his face. “But the moment he did, heh, let’s say I’ve been a puppet. He knows exactly how much of a coward I am, and he knows my scars like no one else alive. He’s tried to kill me six times, and every single fucking time, I still fucking crawl back to him, like a masochist or something. I’m sorry.”

 

It was still silent, and Johan needed some sound, it was far too quiet, so all he could do was talk.

 

“When Dad died, Mom waited three months, just  _ three _ , before she went off and remarried a man named Paul Drew. Th-that always struck me as wrong, like they planned it or something. She made me change my last name as well, saying otherwise I’m not a part of the family. What came with that family was an older brother. One very… violent o-older brother.”

 

He swallowed, feeling cold. He rubbed his arms, but even his hands were no comfort, colder than any other part of him.

 

“He, uh, J-Joey, would steal money from the family safe and pin it on me. Th-they always believed him, and let him do what he wanted to me as, uh,  _ punishment _ , they called it. He would take me to his room, turn me around and whip me with his belt until I was black and blue all over.”

 

Johan’s hands were shaking, and he gripped his knees in an effort to stop the motion.

 

“If he’d pass me in the hallway he’d push me into the wall and hold me to it by my neck, and hit my arms and chest. He’d look for me if he was mad for any reason and get out his an-anger on me. During meals he’d sit next to me and not let me eat while he did, and if people were over for dinner, he’d hit me under the table, and if we had guests in general and he wanted to, ha,  _ punish _ me, he’d gag me first before t-taking off his belt and whipping me again. He would draw on my back the outline of a shirt, keeping his blows in that area to make sure no one would notice any bruises.”

 

Esther was crying silently with her lips parted and her eyes wide, but Johan could tell she didn’t know that she was crying at all.

 

“When I got older and started fighting back, he’d tie me to his bedpost. He started making me count then, and if I was too loud or stuttered, he would start the whole thing over and I’d have to say both the number we were up to and the total amount. Once I ended up getting four hundred thirty two hits because I kept fucking up. When they found out I had polio, he stopped tying me up, probably to show how much more able he was compared to me.” 

 

He drummed on his knees, trying to forget the fact he couldn’t feel it.

 

When they did work, it still was a living hell.

 

“He started keeping tabs on me, following me and paying people to stalk me. He forced me to do… horrible things, and I was pretty infamous for being a awful person. I lived in a constant state of fear, and I started seeing him everywhere, even if he was in the other side of town. The doctors diagnosed me with PTSD, but none of them could tell where the hell it was coming from, and the source was standing right behind me.”

 

His face felt chilled and dripped wet. He touched it, pulling away liquid. Fuck, he was crying. He chuckled in spite of himself, in both regards. What a bitch he was, crying about something that happened years ago.

 

“I escaped by… it was dumb. A friend from school, the year above me, came over to me in my senior year, on the single full month that Joey had left on a business trip with his uncle. This friend was my only, uh, queer friend, and we had gotten to know each other pretty well.

 

‘I have to get out of here, Jo,’ my friend said. ‘My sisters are killing me.’

 

‘My brother is killing me,’ I replied, but he laughed, not taking it literally, not like how I meant it. ‘Do you have an idea of how we can leave?’

 

‘I do,’ he answered with a smile. ‘My sisters are crazy homophobic, and so are your parents. If it comes out that two boys kissed, it’s likely they’ll want them ostracised, yes?’

 

‘Of course,’ I rolled my eyes. He looked down at me, and his face was blank. ‘A-are you suggesting something, B?’

 

‘Don’t call me that,’ he shoved me gently, ‘and yeah. I want to elope with L, she’s all for it, but my father is against it, especially because of the “Benny” within hir. So I need out.’

 

‘And you want to…?’ I prompted, knowing what he meant. He leaned close. ‘B?’

 

‘Let’s kiss in town center,’ he told me, smiling. ‘L said if it’ll get me out of the house, we should definitely try.’

 

‘Sure,’ I agreed, already dreaming of freedom. ‘When?’

 

‘Five, just when everything closes,’ he answered, having planned well. He turned to leave. ‘Make sure to make as big a ruckus as we can.’

 

Oh, we did. We were the talk of the town for a whole week.”

 

Johan smiled a little to himself, reminiscing. 

 

“One of my only good memories of that time. The results went perfectly for him, but, uh, backfired on me. I was written out of the will and Joey was written in by his father’s urging. I wasn’t allowed to leave the house.”

 

He was blushing madly, embarrassed and ashamed.

 

“I robbed my own home’s vault,” he muttered. “Then I stole things here and there from the house, and ran away in the middle of the night, when Joey was just coming home. They came in the front door as I slipped out the back. I changed my last name to one I hadn’t used and would be too obvious to make the association seem too dumb. I thought I was finally free. But no, he, Joey, showed up as the mayor of Inkwell, and I had to flee once more, and then I ended up here three years later. I’ve been here for seven years, but far early in he had found me again, and dragged me back… and I was a toy once more.”

 

He dropped his head back into his hands.

 

“Just… kill me, or something, I still see him in the corner of my vision, I’m insane, I’m broken, I’m lost, I’m a deviant, I’m useless, I’m a leech, just… hang me. Get rid of a blight, am I right? Maybe I should have died in the desert, then none of you would have to put up with me. I’m sorry, Esther.”

 

“Don’t say things like that about yourself,” Ray beat the zealous sister to the chase. “You aren’t there anymore, you’re here, with Esther and me.”

 

“I’m nothing, I’m nowhere, and I’ll never amount to anything or be where I should,” he rasped, tears catching in his lashes. Ray looked like he wanted to never see another tear fall. “I’m going to die anyways, why bother waiting for Joey to murder me? Just finish me off. Retribution or some other shit. I’m not worth keeping around.”

 

“Don’t say that,” Esther demanded, wiping down her face. “Don’t you dare say that! I don’t care if no one else agrees with me, I’m not letting you die, or be killed, or be some sort of sacrifice! You don’t get to run away from this! You’ll face it. We’ll face it. Together.” She got quiet, running her hand through his hair, looking over his miserable and broken face. She pulled him close, pressing a kiss to the top of his head, rocking with him back and forth. “I can’t lose you, Johan, my little brother… oh god… Johan. I’m so… so sorry I wasn’t there for you.”

 

“No worries,” he whispered, gripping her. “I’ve got this.”

 

“Not alone, you don’t,” Ray chuckled, patting his back. “I’ve got your back, Johan. We’re with you. What Joey did was a bitch move. Were multiple moves of bitchery. Joey is a bitch, is what I’m trying to say.”

 

Johan laughed a little.

 

“That he is…” he murmured. “That he is.”

 

Only problem was he was a smart one, too. Johan sighed, ignoring that for the present.

 

"We'll get through this. Together."

 

Unluckily for for everyone, Johan was a pathological liar.

 

Whether he knew he was lying or not now, and what he was lying about if he were, can never be told.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next chapter will probably be delayed -_-


End file.
